In Culture
- This is the state bird of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.
- It features in the title and central metaphor of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In that novel, mockingbirds are portrayed as innocent and generous, and two of the major characters, Atticus Finch and Miss Maudie, say it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because "they don't do one thing for us but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us".
- The traditional American lullaby "Hush Little Baby" has been recorded in numerous musical styles. The lyrics refer to Northern Mockingbirds once being popular as pets, and begin:
- Hush little baby, don't say a word,
- Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.
- And if that mockingbird don't sing,
- Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
- "Listen to the Mocking Bird" is a classic American folk song.
- President Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird named Dick.
Read more about this topic: Northern Mockingbird
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)